Gaven’s First Birthday

We celebrated Gaven’s birthday the weekend before his actual birthday, Jan 14th. Our plan was to have a small party with around 20-25 ppl. Then we got carried away and invited way too many people. It was hard because if you invite this person, you have to invite the other person. That’s how our guests list got too long. We ended with around 35- 40 people.

My initial plan was to have cupcakes, the plan changed because there were just way too many cupcakes to make or order. I was going to bake my own cupcakes and decorate it myself, unfortunately, I have 0 talent in cake decorating. So we took the easy way out, order a cake from a bakery. I wanted to have a nice fondant decorated cake but it was just way too pricey. So I went the cheap way, and ordered a Costco cake and ordered separately a custom edible image to make the cake somewhat custom. I so wish my friend, June lives near me so I can have her help me bake my own cake.

We had Popeye’s chicken, Pizza and chow mein that I ordered from a Thai Restaurant for my chinese friends. Honestly, I think my chinese friends are disappointed with the food. The chow mein didn’t taste so good and I don’t think they care much for the Pizza. I need to come up with something else in the future if I am going to have my chinese friends over.

John blew the balloons in the morning with a helium tank we got from Wal Mart. I made the banner myself. I googled and googled forever for templates.

We have a little age guessing game, whoever was able to arrange the pictures above in the order from youngest to oldest wins a $10 Starbucks gift card. Chisho won, which is odd considering he had only seen Gaven a couple times since he was born. I think he cheated.

We forgot to take his cake out from the fridge to let it sit out so that it won’t be so hard. We took it out just before the cake smashing session and it was frozen hard. He wanted nothing to do with it. He started fussing when we put his hand on the cake, probably cause it was cold. Then we tried to put a little in his mouth and he flat out rejected it. So he didn’t get to eat any cake on his birthday unlike most kids, who are happy to shove their face in the cake.

Steve and his girlfriend showed up late when everyone left and Gaven was in bed. Nothing unusual from Steve, always late to anywhere. His gf brought over these cute little cake pops. Special thanks to Janet and Jimmy who came over early to help out with the party.

We didn’t get to open gifts that day except for a couple. It was just way too busy to do everything. So we left the gifts unopened till his actual birthday. We had family come over on the 18th, and opened all his gifts that night. Coincidentally, John’s cousin from CT was visiting that week, so they came over too.

12 month Update

12 month update…. where did the time go? Let’s see what this little guy has been up to:

1. Walking- Major! He started walking just 3 days shy from his 1st birthday. We thought he would never walk. He has been standing up pretty good without support and would take 1 step but he would not move any further. We tried encouraging him but he would still take 1 step and then leap forward. So we were surprised when he finally had the courage to take more than 1 step. He didn’t just take a couple steps, he just went for it. He took many many steps. Of course, John and I were beyond ecstatic.
2. Food- It is a struggle to get him to eat sometimes. It seems like the older he gets the harder it is to feed him. He also seems to throw up a lot. At one point, he threw up at almost every meal. It didn’t seem to bother him because after he throws up, he is back to laughing and giggling, all happy. It’s almost seem like an act of rebellion toward us. It’s like him saying “Hey, enough, I told you I am not interested in eating. Please stop feeding me or I’ll vomit all over the floor.” Whatever, I digress! Now we can kind of tell from his facial expression when he is about to throw up. We have to stop feeding him and let him rest for a little bit before continue feeding him if we know that he has only had a little. If he has enough, we stop feeding him even though he didn’t eat as much as we would like him to. He still likes pureed food over chunky food. He doesn’t seem to like to chew. He choked a few times and threw up because he swallowed his food without chewing. If we let him feed himself, he would chew his food. Maybe we should have just let him feed himself when comes to chunky food, but then again, he doesn’t eat much when he feeds himself. At least not to our expectation. Thankfully, we still haven’t seen any food allergy reaction from him yet.
3. Teeth- He still has 8 teeth, 4 on top and 4 at the bottom. There  is no sign of molars yet.
4. Personality- He is a very happy baby. Many people comment at what a happy little boy he is. He has the most infectious laugh ever! I just love it when he is laughing up a storm. He is also a very sociable baby. He is not afraid of strangers. Anyone can carry him although he doesn’t smile much with strangers. Wait, I take it back. It depends on his mood actually. I have seen him on some occasions, all smiley and chatty with strangers.
5. Play- He still loves to put things in his mouth but he is getting better at playing with his hands. His newest thing now is pressing a button. Everything he touches, he presses his fingers on it as if there is a button there.
6. Belly Button- He loves it. He presses my belly button, he presses John’s belly button… except for his own. He especially loves it when we make sounds each time he presses on it.
7. Books- He still expresses no interest in it. He doesn’t really likes book very much. He vastly prefers his toys over books. Very very sad… I hope this will change as he grows older.
8. Speech- Loud. He is very loud and babbles all day long. We are afraid to take him to the restaurants now, because he would scream and throw tantrum if he gets bored. He also has this thing that when he crawls, he makes noise, like “ah, ah , ah, ah, ah” as if announcing that he is coming. You can hear him all the way from another room that he is coming as his “ah, ah, ah” sounds become louder.
9. Words- He still doesn’t say many words yet sadly, except for the basic mama, ta-ta, da-da, mum-mum, uh-oh and etc. We would like to believe that he knows how to say “bath time” and “all done” because when we say it, he repeats it. Although it doesn’t sound quite right, the tone is there. We would also like to blame it on language confusion because I sometimes speak Mandarin to him and John of course speaks English to him all the time. So his delayed in speech development, we blame it on that, be it or not.
10. Sleep- It’s getting worse. We have created a bad habit of co-sleeping with him ever since my brother visited back in mid- Dec. When he fusses in the middle of the night, we bring him to bed with us. We love it because we get to snuggle with him at night and we play together in bed when we wake up in the morning. He used to hate sleeping in our bed but now he loves it. We would put him down in his crib at 7-7:30pm. He would sleep and if he wakes up in the middle of the night, we bring him to bed with us. Sometimes, he doesn’t wake up and sleeps through the next day but that only happens maybe once a week. I don’t see any harm in it right now, but I think eventually we will have to stop this bad habit.

1 Year Check Up

Gaven got 3 shots from his 1 year check up. He was completely healthy on the day we took him to his check up. Doctor said he is looking good, very healthy. The next day, he developed mild fever from the shots he got. Two days later, he had major ear infections… on both ears. I freaked out when Penny had to call me to pick him up at noon. She said he has been crying for 1.5 hours since he woke up from his nap and want nothing to do with food. So I rushed to pick him up and took him to the doctor right away. Doctor prescribed him with 10 day antibiotic and the next day he seemed to be doing a lot better. This is the 3rd time he had ear infection. The scariest thing is dealing with it all by myself. John was coincidentally on a business trip. It was exhausting caring for a sick child all by yourself with no help. No fun. However, it was very rewarding because he couldn’t stop kissing me the next day after he’s all better and well rested. He doesn’t show his affection very much, so to get kisses from him without having to ask for it, was very very rewarding.

Here’s his stats at his 1 year check-up:

Height: 31.5 in, 80.01 cm (92%)

Weight: 21 lbs 15 ozs, 9.95 kg (36%)

BMI: 15.5

Head Circ: 18 in, 45.72 cm (31%)

Just for fun, here’s Gaven’s growth record for his 1st year of life:

Gaven’s First Christmas

On Christmas eve, Gaven can’t wait to see what’s in his stocking!

He found Sophie! He left Sophie in Vegas. Santa brought it back for him.

We also made Gaven his first Christmas ornament. We bought this Babyprint Holiday Ornament Kit. We got ours from landofnod.com. The kit arrived a little late, so we didn’t get to make it till Christmas eve. The plan was to make the tiny handprint of his…

But then, he would dig his fingers onto the clay each time we placed his hand on it. After several attempts, we still couldn’t get a normal looking handprint. We then decided to make his footprint instead. Not pictured, sadly. I just realized we didn’t take a picture of the finished product! The ornament is now sitting safely in a box along with all other Christmas décor up in the attic. John just told me that there is no way he is going to climb up to the attic to get the ornament for me to take a picture so I can post it on my blog. Too bad… blame it on him.

Anywhoo… the morning of Christmas, we had our gift opening session, just the 3 of us.

At the rate he is going, our gift opening session lasted 3 hours.

Santa brought him an airplane rocker!

Then the session continued at Debbie’s house. We headed over there around 3pm for dinner and the 2nd round of opening gifts with Grandparents and cousins.

Guess who received the most presents?

Cow Milk

We started slowly transitioning Gaven to cow milk after his 1 year doctor appointment. We got him a new straw cup and have been encouraging him to drink from it. He is slowly getting used to the idea drinking from a straw cup. Here he is very proud of himself… acting all silly. Wait… or is it the crazy parents in the background that kept on giving positive reinforcement over a straw cup drinking experience that’s silly?

Santa Picture

Since it’s a tradition for kids here to take a Santa picture, we took Gaven for his first Santa picture experience. Like many other babies, they cry and scream when they see Santa. Not sure what is it with Santa that gives those vibes to the kids… a big man with lots of white beard maybe? Gaven was no exception when came to his Santa experience. Thankfully we managed to get a decent shot of him before he started screaming for help.

So serious?!

All dressed up ready to go…

Standing in line waiting for his turn….

A new set of eyes

For my Christmas present, I got a brand new set of eyes from John. Yes, you heard it right. New set of eyes! I had LASIK done over the Christmas break. I have always wanted to do it but the financial part of it was holding me back. Finally I saw that they have this Groupon deal for $1,950. I jumped right on it and bought it. I then told John that he doesn’t need to wreck his brain trying to figure out what to get me for Christmas. I have already decided it for him. All he needs to do is just to pay my credit card bill that I purchased it with. haha.. he basically was forced into it.

During the consultation, we found out that my corneas are irregular and then I am not qualified to do the LASIK Keratome. I was given a choice to do Intralase or PRK (Photorefractive Keratectomy). You can read more about it here. They probably will explain it better than I do. I ended up paying $600 more to do the Intralase, where there is no blade involved. Well, the deal is not so much of a deal anymore… anyway, it would still be cheaper than not getting the Groupon deal at all.

I was advised not to wear my contacts 10 days prior to my surgery. I can’t drive after the surgery and for a couple days, was advised to take things easy. The first day, I can’t watch TV nor play with the computer. But I can pretty much resume my normal activities the next day.

I now can see without contact lenses and no more glasses! I love my gift this year!

source here.